What should be done with the PCC?

Critics call it a 'toothless watchdog' – and even its supporters admit it is the 'least worst option'. The Press Complaints Commission and its chair, Lady Buscombe, came under fire last week from MPs, lawyers, this paper's editor and bloggers. Is it time for a rethink?

The PCC chairman, Lady Buscombe, at the Society of Editors AGM. Photograph: SWNS.com

What should be done with the PCC?

Critics call it a 'toothless watchdog' – and even its supporters admit it is the 'least worst option'. The Press Complaints Commission and its chair, Lady Buscombe, came under fire last week from MPs, lawyers, this paper's editor and bloggers. Is it time for a rethink?

Sunday 22 November 2009 19.05 EST
First published on Sunday 22 November 2009 19.05 EST

Geoffrey Robertson: 'The PCC's worst claim is that it has raised standards of journalism – it has not'

The most satisfactory reform of the PCC would be its abolition. It is a PR exercise, funded by press proprietors in the hope of misleading MPs into thinking that media self-regulation can stop invasions of privacy – hence, we do not need a privacy law. But now we have a privacy law, thanks to the European convention, which is incoherent and a threat to press freedom. The PCC tries to function as a poor person's libel court, but why should the vilified poor have to resort to an amateur set of adjudicators who can award them no compensation or damages – not even their bus fare home – and cannot direct newspapers to publish any correction prominently?

The PCC's worst feature has been its propagandistic claim that it has raised standards of journalism – which it has not, other than perhaps the reporting of the royal family, over whom it is obsessively protective. It goes to extravagant lengths to deter people from asserting their legal rights ("Why should I use the PCC rather than the courts?") with bogus (yes, I know the libel risks) arguments that are exploded in my book on media law – p769 (Penguin, 5th edition).

PCC adjudications do not carry weight and some actually undermine free speech. No self-respecting US newspaper editor would have any truck with a PCC – a sorry reflection on all British editors (with the noble exception of Ian Hislop).

The Guardian and its editor should withdraw from the PCC forthwith and not just the code committee. It has an effective ombudsperson to handle complaints and should be prepared to defend its journalism in court if need be. The money the media currently waste on the PCC should be spent on making common cause with broadcasters and electronic media to combat the threats to freedom of expression – our repressive libel law, the subverting of our once-famous "open justice" principle, and the absurdly vague law of privacy that has been allowed to develop because PCC protection is ineffective.

Geoffrey Robertson QC is author of People Against the Press

Bob Satchwell: 'It must not bend in the face of unfounded criticism from celebrities, MPs and lawyers'

Like the newspapers it polices, the PCC must respond to reasoned public opinion and the wishes of readers, online customers and viewers, but it must not change fundamentally. It must not bend in the face of unfounded criticism from celebrities minor and major, politicians, big business, and, of course, lawyers attracted by the prospects of new laws with fines or other penalties that would simply mean more business.

There are already a wide range of controls on the media. Critics should remember that laws do not stop crime, they merely deal with the consequences. They also fail to acknowledge that the PCC and the code it polices have dramatically improved the behaviour that caused its creation. That code must be written by editors from newspapers big and small, and they must be on the commission if they are to be respected by the industry. There is no fiercer critic of a journalist than another journalist.

The code is part of editors' and journalists' contracts of employment. Should there be a more a powerful sanction than the loss of livelihood?

The PCC is not really self-regulation. It is a system established and paid for by the industry and then left quite correctly in the control of the lay chairman, lay commissioners and their staff who do not have a background in the industry.

The bottom line is that the system is not designed, and should not set out to control, the press. It is a system that should make editors and journalists think twice. Who are they hurting or offending? Do they have a good reason for invading an individual's privacy? Can they justify to the PCC that their work is in the public interest?

Ill-informed critics must not be allowed to push us back into history when journalists were thrown into jail simply because rich and powerful people did not like what they had written.

• Bob Satchwell is executive director of the Society of Editors

Peter Wilby: 'It should investigate press conduct off its own bat, not wait for complaints'

The Press Complaints Commission needs higher visibility, greater independence and a more proactive role. Newspapers should be required to advertise its existence, inform readers how to make complaints and display prominently (with a front-page cross reference) its adjudications. The code of practice committee should include academics from university journalism and media departments, and representatives of the National Union of Journalists, not just senior editorial executives. The commission should more often investigate press conduct off its own bat, instead of waiting for directly affected individuals to lodge complaints.

I can think of at least a dozen other ways to improve the PCC. None, however, will alter the commission's fundamental difficulty: that the press can be regulated by a non-statutory body, lacking powers to call witnesses or impose sanctions, only insofar as the press wishes to be regulated. Newspapers agreed to tolerate (and not very generously finance) the PCC purely in order to protect themselves against the threat of statutory regulation. In this, they and the PCC have failed abysmally. During the PCC's 18-year history, a whole new area of law, protecting personal privacy, has been developed by the courts. Increasingly, judges have granted injunctions in advance of publication to stop potentially libellous or intrusive stories appearing at all – and to forbid all mention of such restrictions.

In other words, the courts have stepped in where the PCC has failed, but (partly because of the costs involved) they act in the interests, not of the wider public, but of the rich, famous, powerful and unaccountable. Statutory regulation, provided it included strong safeguards for investigative journalism in the public interest, might even be an improvement. The press has to save itself: by giving the PCC enhanced powers, taking it seriously, and showing genuine commitment to principles of fair, accurate and compassionate journalism.

David Banks: 'The PCC should specify the position of adjudications within publications'

The regulatory regimes in continental Europe, Australia, Canada are run on lines similar to that of the PCC: a code drawn up by the industry and run on a self-regulatory basis. But in the UK, we have Ofcom, which critics of the PCC say does all the PCC does and more.

The PCC, because it does not levy financial penalties, claims to be be "fast, free and fair" – Ofcom hits broadcasters with huge fines. The PCC does not take third-party complaints – Ofcom does.

One of the most telling criticisms of the PCC has come from Gerry McCann, father of Madeleine. Asked why he sued for libel rather than complaining to the PCC, he said: "I did think it was surprising that the editor of the paper that had so flagrantly libelled us could be a representative of the PCC." Although he added that the PCC had helped maintain privacy for his other children.

This could be one of the PCC's main failings: not properly selling the principles of self-regulation to the public.

Here are some ideas for reform – many have been resisted by the press before, some require a bigger budget:

• A power to investigate major complaints

• The power to specify position of adjudications within publications

• Greater transparency of the code-making and adjudications process

• Lay members who represent a better cross section of readers, rather than the great and the good

• A greater willingness to take on third party complaints, or to act when the code is being obviously transgressed (and not just when that involves royalty)

Next year's new parliament will bring a new crop of MPs unsullied by expenses scandals and willing, perhaps, to look once more at statutory regulation, unless the PCC is seen to respond to calls for reform.

• David Banks is co-author of McNae's Essential Law for Journalists and teaches at the University of Sunderland